Intro
Accurate Technical Translation Services for Your Industry
Technically accurate translations ensure that your global audience resonates with your brand’s product or service. Our professional SMEs not only translate words but localize the context, so your documents are specific to your industry and are culturally relevant to your target audience. Andovar produces high-quality technical translations for many types of industries.
The design, production, and use of engineering products demand documents that include design specifications, project proposals, progress reports, installation guides, and maintenance manuals. Translation errors can prove costly in time and money. Among the more common mistakes are inconsistent terminology, incorrect context, and the lack of a review before release. We avoid these errors by relying on translators who are both native speakers and subject matter experts. Their language background produces culturally meaningful localization, and their in-depth knowledge of your industry delivers technically accurate and consistent content. These native speakers also take charge of Quality Assurance (QA), through our ContentQuo cloud-based platform. Our Translation Management System integrates this QA system to enhance accuracy and consistency at scale.
Technical documents for software are unique because they exist online or within the code in the form of online help, tooltips, video, and standalone PDF documents.
- An immediate challenge is that text localized from English to another language expands, for example, by as much as 30 percent in Vietnamese. Online fields that display that content must either dynamically increase in size or be big enough to accommodate the increase.
- Any User Interface (UI) content, such as button labels and menu options, must be consistent within the software and the documentation. Screenshots and training materials that show the UI also require localization.
- Andovar’s technical translators also stand out as software specialists. They handle both text localization and integration into desktop programs, web applications, and mobile apps.
Translating automotive content demands native language proficiency and subject matter expertise in automotive engineering. You can’t translate what you don’t understand. Mistranslations may compromise safety, such as when a technician or driver cannot understand what to do in an emergency. They may also affect profits when marketing brochures do not represent the culture of the target buyer.
Localization for this industry addresses audiences with different technical backgrounds:
- Manufacturing guides, safety documents, and design resources are targeted to engineering and other technical professionals with a deep understanding of automotive engineering.
- Owner’s manuals and marketing materials go to general consumers who only want to drive their cars and have only a passing interest in mechanical maintenance.
- In all cases, Andovar considers the language and the context in which it is used. A car brochure targeted for drivers in the USA shows fuel efficiency as miles per gallon (MPG). In Europe, that figure must be localized to liters per 100 kilometers (L/100 km). This and more in addressed during the localization process.
With sourcing of raw materials, production, assembly, distribution, and management happening across the world, it’s safe to say manufacturing is a major global enterprise. The documents needed to make the entire process go smoothly include project proposals, design manuals, operating instructions, safety reports, installation guides, and maintenance manuals. These materials must detail your products and services while complying with local regulations and exceeding customer expectations.
Andovar relies on professional translators who are also manufacturing experts to provide document solutions for all the languages used at every point of your process. We understand how manufacturing works and how to localize that information for different audiences, such as engineers, factory managers, and production workers.
Among the tools we can use are a Translation Management System, translation glossaries specific to your field, machine translation for high-volume projects, and the ContentQuo QA platform. They help our team ensure that your manufacturing project remains consistent and comprehensible across the world.
Medical translation involves content related to medicine, healthcare, pharmaceutical products, clinical trials, and medical devices. Many of the documents related to his industry must not only accurately explain complex conditions and technologies but must meet the standards imposed by government regulations.
A technically accurate understanding of what you produce can literally mean the difference between life and death for your audience. One of the most common issues involves abbreviations. An abbreviation may apply to multiple terms, or one term may have several abbreviations.
- Do you keep both the abbreviation and term untranslated, so they’re consistent in any language?
- Do you keep the abbreviation for consistency and translate the meaning to increase understanding in the target language?
- Do you translate both abbreviations and meanings, so is it linguistically meaningful but no longer consistent with the original?
- Andovar achieves high-quality medical localization by using translation professionals who are native language speakers and have specialized training in the different branches of medicine, which include biotechnology, chemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology.
What we localize
Technical Documents that We Translate
Our expertise covers all kinds of technical documents that are printed or used online. The following are a few examples.
Data sheets
Feasability studies
Installation guides
Maintenance documents
Product brochures and catalogs
Safety reports
Scientific and technical articles
User manuals
Service manuals
Software help text
Standard operating procedures
Technical brochures
Training manuals
Case Studies
Success Stories
Agoda
Audiences across Europe and Asia can now access Agoda’s extensive travel services in their own languages.
Spotify
Reaching out to music lovers in Thailand, Spotify translated its user interface into Thai, expanding into a new market.
Airbnb
Preparing to launch in a new region, Airbnb wanted to adapt its marketing content and localize its app and videos.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
We ensure high quality by beginning with the right person for the job. We only assign native speakers of the target language and specialists in your industry to handle your technical translation project. Applicants for our translator positions must pass an exacting test that determines their skill and technical background. Only about 5 percent make it. They then undergo rigorous onboarding until they meet the high standards of customer service that set Andovar apart from the competition.
We make technical translation as convenient as possible for you by working in the format you’re most comfortable with. We’re well-versed in the documentation software produced by Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, and Quark, among others. If you're used to different applications, we can either learn to use them or convert what we produce to your formats.If you only have hard copies available, we use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to convert the text into an editable format. To guarantee faithfulness to the original, the scanned text goes through quality assurance before it is worked on.
We work with 80 languages and 200 language pairs in many industries. Our offices in Singapore, the United States, Thailand, India, Hungary, and Colombia, can contact over 10,000 professional translators who take on your project anywhere in the world. To make our efforts more efficient, we use a state-of-the-art Translation Management System (TMS), Translation Memory, Computer Assisted Translation tools, translation glossaries, a terminology management system, and machine translation for high-volume content. We then subject the project through a cloud-based QA platform called ContentQuo, which is integrated with our TMS to ensure consistency and accuracy at scale.
Call Andovar in early, preferably during the planning process. We can then take care of much of the prep work. If you prefer to prepare your project at the start or if your project is complete except for localization, here are a few things you can do.
- Define your target audience as thoroughly as possible, including the areas they live or work in, their languages and dialects, their technical backgrounds, their jobs, and what they will do with your offerings. This helps us to narrow down any linguistic or cultural specifics.
- Finalize your text by proofreading it multiple times. If you have to make changes to your submission after we work on it, you add to the time and cost for completing it.
- Submit as many of the editable source files as possible, including original artwork and screen captures. We can then work directly on the source without spending time and effort converting printed documents into an editable form.
- Allow for design changes due to translation. Put in plenty of white space in which text can expand.
- Establish a realistic schedule and deadline for localization. Rushing a project risks errors while adding to the cost.
Although projects differ, our translators follow the same basic process for localization:
- Investigation: The translation team reads and understands the source, so its members can thoroughly understand the scope of localization.
- Planning: Translators decide on the technical level, language(s) and dialects, and terminology to use for the translation. They determine if they require additional resources to complete the requirements, such as research papers, scientific articles, and technical dictionaries.
- Localization: The team translates your content based on the plan. Aside from their own expertise, they may also use Computer-Assisted Translation tools, such as translation memory. The primary goals for technical translation are accuracy, clarity, and objectivity.
- Review: The team and other members of Andovar, such as QA, review and revise the localization until they reach the project goals.
- Release. After the final quality check, Andovar submits the translation to you for your approval.
Talk to an expert
Please provide a little bit of information in the form below and we will be in touch soon. If you are interested in working for Andovar (as translator/ SLV or full-time employee), please visit our careers site.